Better late than never. First Internet since Juneau
Our friends Sharon & Craig Rowley arrived from a sun-deprived Seattle to a rainy Sitka on Wednesday, July 27. After a brief orientation, we turned them loose to explore the sights around town. Marcia and I continued with a few boat chores. Since Craig is a better photographer than I am, unless otherwise noted, I am using his photographs in this blog post.
We get underway on Friday, July 29 after lunch and make the short trip to the Magoun Islands, a short distance north of Sitka. Already anchored outside the entrance to the inner cove is the Ursa Major, the boat Marcia traveled from Baja to Seattle on in 2006. We join them there since the shallow entrance channel will be at low tide the next morning when we want to depart.
We have a 6-day permit for Glacier Bay starting on August 3. The weather forecast is favorable so we elect to travel the outside coast of Chichagof Island to Icy Strait over two days. The route we take actually only has two sections on the outside. The first section of 20 miles we do on the first day and the second section of 10 miles we do on the second day.
The westerly swell is not large but we drop one stabilizer on the port (weather) side into the water to reduce any rolling. Additionally, it gives us some more experience with the new stabilizers we are using this year. They are significantly lighter than our original stabilizers and are easier to retrieve from the water.
On Saturday, July 30, we pull into Kimshan Cove. The afternoon weather is nice enough that we cook hamburgers on the gas grill on the fly bridge. It isn’t nice enough to eat outside, though.
The next day, July 31, we continue the north a short ways than take the Lisianski Strait that separates Yakobi Island from Chichagof Island. We end the day on the public dock in Elfin Cove. We spent several days in Elfin Cove last year with our friends the Dorothy and Dave Nagle. A childhood friend of theirs owns Coho Bar & Grill in Elfin Cove. It had been badly damaged in a fire last year and we lent a hand at the cleanup. This year it was open for business and we had afternoon appetizers there.
The clouds and rain were returning but the next day, August 1, we departed across Icy Strait for Dundas Bay. Although we timed our departure for near slack current, when we made our way through Middle Pass through the Inian Islands, the seas were sloppy on account of the swirling currents. Stellar sea lions were taking advantage of the confused waters to feed on fish that were being buffeted by the current.
We had heard many good reports about Dundas Bay but we’ll have to return in better weather. We ended up anchoring in as protected an area as we could find and watching the wind driven rain buffet us about.
The next day, Tuesday, August 2, as we left Dundas Bay we did spot a brown (aka “grizzly”) bear foraging on the beach at low tide. We continued east along Icy Strait past the entrance to Glacier Bay (the National Park Service is adamant that you only enter on the day of your permit). 
We cruised by a popular humpback whale viewing area at Point Adolphus. There were abundant number whales and gave us hope for further viewing while in the park.
We anchored that night in Flynn Cove. On account of it being Marcia’s birthday, Craig did the cooking. Dessert was brownies with cookie dough ice cream.
We entered Glacier Bay on our appointed day, August 3, and attended the boater orientation at the park HQ in Bartlett Cove. There are some hiking trails near Bartlett Cove so we anchored out and dinghied to the public dock to go for afternoon hikes.
For August 4, we traveled past the bird sanctuaries of North & South Marble Island. Stellar sea lions use the haul-out rocks at one end of the island and birds nest in the steeper rock sections along the islands face. Two kinds of puffins, tufted and horned were present on the island. That night we anchored in North Sandy Cove a lovely anchorage we used in 2010 on our visit to the park.
The visibility was pretty low when started our cruise the next day, August 5, up Muir Inlet. It is a long way up and we were concerned that we wouldn’t see much. Fortunately, the weather improved to give us some nice views. One unexpected treat was a pod of 4 or 5 orca whales feeding. We saw them both on the way up and the way back. After a long day of motoring along, we dropped the anchor in Blue Mouse Cove.
While we saw some glaciers in Muir Inlet, the iconic glacier view in Glacier Bay National Park is Margerie Glacier. Saturday, August 6, was the one day that week in which there were no cruise ships in the park. As it turned out, we had the glacier pretty much to ourselves that morning. In addition, it was the best weather we had had for several days.
We made a 1/4 mile “drive-by” of the glacier front for photo-ops then moved away to a 1/2 mile and shut down the engine. There was no wind and no current so we barely moved 100 yards in the 45 minutes we drifted there. Anchorage that night was in Reid Inlet.
For our last night, August 7, in the park we made our way to North Finger Bay. As we were entering the bay, we saw whale spout from 3 or 4 humpback whales feeding in the bay. We put the boat in neutral and drifted 10 or so minutes while whales were feeding around us. We even had a synchronized diving show by two whales 200 yards from the boat. We waited for the whales to move away from the boat before we motored slowly towards the shallow part of the bay.
The next day, August 8, as we left the park, humpback whales gave us one last show. We saw several whales feeding and breaching a short distance from the boat. After watching them a few minutes while in neutral, we concluded the “show” was over and resumed our motoring along. Suddenly, 300 yards away, a whale breaches the water and comes crashing back. Marcia grabs the camera and races out onto the bow of the boat and waits for another breach. Not wanting to disappoint Marcia, the whale accommodates and repeats its earlier performance twice more.
After the excitement, we make the journey east down Icy Strait where it joins Chatham Strait. We anchor our last night before Juneau in Funter Bay.
On the morning of August 9, before departing Craig and I retrieve the two crab pots we set the night before and find two keeper crabs. The 15 knot winds that start our journey that morning disappear as we approach Auke Bay, a few miles north of downtown Juneau, where we conclude this leg of the trip.
The distance traveled from Sitka to Juneau was 423.4 nautical miles bringing our total distance since leaving Seattle to 2181 miles.
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